For my last two days in Lauterbrunnen, Samy, a friend from Germany, met up with me to hike around the Jungfrau Region. After doing some reading and seeing amazing pictures from other travelers, we decided to make our first excursion a hike to Bachalpsee Lake. Talk about #views that make you stop in your tracks… Bachalpsee Lake is one of those places that the pictures I take with my iPhone just don’t do it justice. 

He brought his car (ah yes, a little break from public transportation!) and we drove to Grindelwald, where we bought cable car tickets to Bort. From there, we hiked a steep incline for about an hour. We kept turning around to take a glimpse of the mountains behind us… (and at least for me, take a moment to catch my breath!)Eventually we made it to a little valley with yellow flowers and the sound of trickling water from a small stream nearby. 

After reaching Bachalpsee Lake, we spent some time taking pictures and making sandwiches. From where we were sitting, we could see Eiger Mountain (and a few others, though we couldn’t pinpoint exactly which mountains they were). It was beautiful. It was also really cold! I knew it’d be chilly because we were going to be in mountains that still had snow, but I wasn’t expecting it to be as cold as it was… Thankfully Samy came prepared with a pair of gloves and a hat I could use until we got moving again.

After about an hour, we walked to the Faulhorn Mountain Peak, but decided not to go to the very top. The clouds had taken over the mountain and we couldn’t see anything (that was starting to become a trend, at least while I was in Lauterbrunnen). 

Then we made our way back down the mountain, passing by a field of cows and two lively goats that walked along the path beside us for 10 or so minutes.With the help of Switzerland’s yellow signs and Samy’s convenient offline app, maps.me, we were back in Grindelwald by mid-afternoon. Switzerland really has it together when it comes to providing hikers with directions… it’s hard to get lost. Even though it wasn’t easy to get going at the crack of dawn (I rolled back over the second my alarm went off), the hike to and from Bachalpsee Lake was worth waking up early for. It’s a day trip that should be on everyone’s list of things to do and places to see.